An incubator of this type is described in DE 36 07 575 A1, whose design facilitates the special air guidance to maintain a stable incubator air temperature even with the hood partially opened in the form of a stable warm air curtain. During operation, the air of the interior space is fed to a fan and from there via an air heater.
An air humidifier of a modular design, which is able to release air drawn in from the environment by means of a fan in the conditioned state into the care area of newborn infants is disclosed in the patent specification DE 196 21 541 C1.
Incubators for the clinical practice have hitherto been designed mainly with the aim of ensuring the most uniform temperature possible in the closed state and to keep immature and sick premature and newborn infants sufficiently warm. It has recently been found that the patients have become increasingly premature and smaller and therapy with good chances of survival with adequate quality of life is possible by the use of corresponding medical engineering means. However, the intensive care medicine necessary for this has also led to the manipulation on the patient becoming increasingly intensive, with correspondingly frequent opening of the access openings provided at the incubator, especially in the form of flaps. Even though the incubators are designed to air condition the air of the interior space, both the temperature and the humidity decrease more or less intensely when passage openings or front flaps are opened. This abrupt decrease cannot be compensated rapidly enough with the prior-art incubators simply by control engineering measures, such as a corresponding heating and humidification, so that the patient does, in fact, suffer an increased loss of heat and his body temperature will correspondingly drop.